Feel Good Food

Eat your way to a good mood: 3 foods that boost your 'feel-good' hormones

Hearing that food can boost your mood is a wonderful thing. Finding out that chocolate is part of that list is absolutely life-changing. Release the endorphins, we say!

While we are pretty excited at the chocolate revelation, health experts say it must be eaten in moderation along with other more nutritious alternatives like blueberries, almonds and passion fruit. Yes, we said it, passion fruit is a mood booster! Amongst many other benefits, it promotes restful sleep, and naturally, when you are well-rested, you feel good. The Coles catalogue for this week has a $5 price tag on their 2L Passion Fruit and Citrus Fizz juice and a great recipe to follow if you'd rather make it yourself. Try it, you won't be disappointed.

We also found that most of the feel-good foods can be grown in your garden easily, isn't that a good reason to start gardening? Here's the list.

1. Spinach & other leafy greens
Rich in magnesium and antioxidants, spinach has been proven to reduce oxidative stress, improve eye health and help prevent heart diseases and cancer. It is an overall excellent vegetable, good for your body, mind, and heart. Another great thing with it is that it only takes 6 - 8 weeks from planting to harvest so you'll be digging in fairly quickly. With these wonderful recipes here, you will never get bored with this vegetable.

2. Red Bell Peppers
These peppers are low in calories and are excellent sources of Vitamins, folic acid, potassium, and fiber. They have been found to improve eye health and reduce the risk of anemia. Red peppers take 60 - 90 days to fully ripen. They go from green to yellow to orange and then finally red. The red peppers are the sweetest as well, it helps then that they'll be a delicious addition to your mood-boosting foods. It also helps that they can be eaten raw or cooked. She's a versatile girl, we like it!

3. Salmon
Yes, you cannot grow salmon in your pretty garden, but it will go exceptionally well with the vegetables you do grow. Salmon is rich in omega 3 fatty acids which have been found to alter our brain chemicals linked with serotonin and dopamine. These are the feel-good hormones that make us sleep well too. Definitely worth adding to this list, we think.

There are plenty of other foods that have been found to boost one's mood, some of which we have been consuming without much thought our entire adult lives, like red wine and coffee. Extensive research has been carried out and it is well documented that consumed in moderation, these two beverages have multiple health benefits. Sometimes all you want is a quick and easy meal, why not not choose those that give you the best health benefit.

Oysters can also be added to this list. You may now enjoy your oysters beyond them being considered just an aphrodisiac. This is good news!

Go on and brew yourself a cup of coffee and bask in the knowledge of the food you may now liberally add to your diet guilt-free.